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Wednesday, October 20, 2010

What BLO offers, a student perspective

I love the quality of Boston Lyric Opera
productions! The BLO strikes a great balance (in my opinion) between
interesting and unique productions and staying true to the nature of the opera
and composer. (In other words, they are not too esoteric or modern for the sake
of being modern.) While it is a relatively small opera company compared to,
say, the Met, I find that the quality of the singers has always been very high,
and they don't rely on "big names". Another aspect of the BLO that I
love is the amount of outreach and opera education they do around Boston. The annual family
opera is always so well done and is a perfect way to introduce children to
opera and to show them that opera doesn't have to be stuffy and boring, but a
lot of fun!

The BLO is always eager to reach out to the
community and provide a great opera experience for people of all ages. The
student subscription is such a wonderful way to make it possible for students
on a budget to be able to spend a great night at the opera. Also, because
tickets aren't as expensive, we can afford to go to all 4 shows, instead of
spending all of our money on one or two.

As a volunteer with the BLO in high school and as an intern
now, I have witnessed first hand what an amazing job this company does of
making sure their members and the whole community is satisfied with the whole
experience, from buying the tickets to special accommodations to the show and
more. With the addition of David Angus as music director, and being present at
his meeting last week with the staff, there was a palpable excitement in the
air as he explained his vision for BLO in the future and I really believe that
he is going to take the high quality of Boston Lyric Opera and elevate it even
further. This is definitely the time to be seeing the BLO shows and to get
involved, because it's on the cusp of truly coming into it's own as an opera
company!